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Obamacare fan? Then Markey is your man

Four of the five candidates running for the U.S. Senate are opposed to Obamacare.

The fifth -- Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Malden -- not only voted for it but said it was the best vote he had ever taken.

What gives? What gives is that the issue is still a dominant campaign theme even though now -- as thousands upon thousands of pages of new rules and regulations are being promulgated -- it is the law of the land.

Despite the fact that Obamacare is being implemented, the issue is still a burning one that will be debated for the rest of this special election, and will be debated again in the congressional elections of 2014.

This, at least, was one thing made clear in the first televised debate of the Senate campaign last week on Boston's WCVB-TV, Channel 5. It not only was the first debate in the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. John F. Kerry, it is also the first statewide campaign for all five candidates.

Unfortunately for the candidates, though, coverage of the debate was largely squashed by the dominating media coverage over Boston Mayor Tom Menino's decision not to run for re-election, and the same-sex marriage saga played out before the U.S. Supreme Court.

All three Republican candidates, appearing in the first half of the two-part debate, vowed to vote to repeal Obamacare if elected. The three are state Rep. Daniel Winslow, former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and political newcomer Gabriel Gomez, a former U.S. Navy Seal.

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While all three Republicans handled themselves well in a gaffe-free encounter -- with no striking differences among them -- their appearance was like the preliminary bout to the main event, which was between the two Democrats.

Still, Winslow made a point when he declared of the three Republicans, "Any one of us is better than either one of them."

Also, Gomez scored a few points when he declined to take a shot at his two opponents. "I'm not here to ask questions of my fellow candidates, to try to tear them down or put them on the spot," he said. The remark was interesting in that both the Winslow and Sullivan campaigns have criticized Gomez for a letter he sent to Gov. Deval Patrick seeking appointment as the interim U.S senator in which he praised President Barack Obama.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, 57, Markey's opponent in the two-man Democratic primary, sparred with Markey over Obamacare in the second segment of the debate. Lynch, who voted against Obamacare when it was before the House, defended his vote as an example of his political independence. "Hey, I don't work for Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid," Lynch said early on.

Markey, 66, who has served in the House for 36 years, painted himself as the political heir to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and to Kerry, who combined had some 75 years of legislative experience.

He praised passage of Obamacare and said its approval was in the Democratic tradition of President Harry Truman, guaranteeing health care to millions of uninsured Americans. His vote for the plan, he said, "was the proudest vote of my career."

Lynch responded by saying the bill gave too much away to the insurance companies while imposing new taxes on the middle class. "What we did there was wrong," he said. He wants to go to the Senate, he said, not to repeal Obamacare but to "fix it."

While no serious punches were landed by either set of candidates, the debate gave the relatively unknown candidates a chance to introduce themselves to the Massachusetts electorate at large before the April 30 primary and the June 25 election.

Things did get a bit testy between Lynch and Markey when Lynch accused Markey of ignoring the needs of Massachusetts fishermen and contributing to rising cable rates, which Markey countered.

But the finest moment in the debate came when the issue of veterans was raised. Lynch, a member of the House Committee on Veteran Affairs, said he faced the closing of three veterans' hospitals in his congressional district upon his appointment to the committee a decade ago.

Since then, Lynch said, "with the help of Ed Markey," the hospitals have not only remained open, but are being expanded.

Markey, the dean of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress, returned Lynch's display of magnanimity, rarely seen in politics these days, when he turned to Lynch and responded: "I honor Steve for his work in that area."

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